Kandy IT Week 2016

The events organized for the Kandy IT week successfully concluded on 12th June 2016.
The three day event attracted many individuals varying from school students to CEO’s of the most reputed IT organizations in Sri Lanka.
The target was to reach out for 2500 school students, 100 exporters and entrepreneurs in the Central Province and 500 undergraduates from 15 state universities and private institutions in the country.
The educational programs, IT and BPM conferences were organized by Sri Lanka Association for  Software and Services Companies (SLASSCOM).
ICTA as the National Partner for the Kandy IT week took the initiative to fund the Future Careers  program and the IT Conference also with giving their fullest support throughout the event.

The Future Careers Program was also supported by Ministry of Education ICT branch and it consisted of an innovation competition, an awareness program for school teachers and principals and a student seminar and career guidance program. Career guidance programs for the schools largely focused on helping students to take the right decision for their future when they step in to the corporate world.

The awareness program for the School Principals and teachers was organized by SLASSCOM as ICTA suggested. It has been recognized the essential need to improve the knowledge of teachers who are distant from the changing trends in IT BPM industry and thus not knowledgeable enough to guide the students to enter the industry.


Future Careers awareness program for School teachers and principals was the initial event which was held on 31st May 2016 at Devon Hotel Kandy. It was conducted by Sachindra Samararatne, Program Manager of the Industry development team of ICTA.
With the participation of almost all the invited schools in the Central Province there were 103 School Principals/Vice principals and IT teachers who represented around 60 schools in the area.
For the first time a booklet which educates the career counselors was distributed among the participants, in their preferred language. The participants enthusiastically engaged with the speaker in the discussions on the ICT education in schools. The lunch was arranged at the hotel for all the participants in the end of the two hour session.



Future Careers program, part of Kandy IT week events took place at Ranabima Royal College premises  on the 10th Friday, June 2016. About 2000 school students from various parts of the Central Province participated for the program with the intention of adding more value to their future career path. SLASSCOM organization committee had arranged all the necessary requirements in order to facilitate the participants and the other invitees for the program. The program comprised 30 minutes briefing session delivered by an experienced industry experts.
School students from grade 9 to 12 were given the opportunity to meet the group of industry experts who volunteered to guide the students after the seminar. Most of the students who participated in the seminar cleared their questions and got inspired by the counselors.

The students were given a Future Careers booklet which contained future information on IT/BPM careers. The feedback was collected after the session to be used for the Monitoring & Evaluation done by ICTA. There was a certificate and gift awarding ceremony for those who won places at the Innovation Competition.
The undergraduates from IIT showcased their award winning products for the participants and their stall was crowded with the school students who were curious about those innovative products.
Future careers program largely focused on making awareness among the school students about the IT and BPM industry and the careers in IT industry. It helped students to broaden their knowledge on the industry and the discussions with industry experts helped the individuals to make effective career decisions after their academic years.

IT/BPM Exports Forum

The IT BPM Exports Forum and the Entrepreneurship workshop was another successful event which  took place on the 11th Saturday, June 2016 at the Queen’s hotel Kandy.
The panelists for the discussion brought up important topics to the table to share the knowledge on IT BPM industry and entrepreneurship.
Tharindu Dissanayake CEO and Founder of Square Mobile shared his experience on being an aspiring entrepreneur.
It was a perfect platform to talk about the National BPM outlook and to convince the audience about where the local industry stands. Sachindra Samararatne , program manager of Industry development Program at ICTA explained where opportunities remain and the current place of Sri Lanka by looking from a global perspective.
A question was raised to the panel about how to create a tech savvy population within the country on which Sachindra’s reply was to equip each individual with the right tool and make use of it.

BPM Conference

With the participation of several CEO’s,country heads and Directors BPM Conference took place at
EOE Pereira Theatre at the University of Peradeniya. Engineering Management, Management and Arts graduates/undergraduates of state universities took part in this conference. The speakers contributed a wealth of knowledge about the Sri Lankan BPM industry and global trends. the workshop will exposed undergraduates to the core of Sri Lanka’s BPM industry, and provided them the opportunity to identify the required skills and expertise to be employable in the BPM sector.

IT Conference

ICTA as the national partner supported the IT conference which held at EOE Pereira Theatre at the Faculty  of  Engineering  in  University  of Peradeniya on 12th June 2016.
Focused group for the event was IT/Computer science undergraduates who represented different universities and the featuring speakers were as follows.

MillenniumIT CEO Mack Gill, Microsoft Sri Lanka Country Manager/Managing Director Brian Kealey, IBM Sri Lanka Chief Executive Officer/Country General Manager Chrishan Fernando, WSO2 Founder, Chairman and CEO Sanjiva Weerawarana, Zone24x7 CEO and Founder Lavan Fernando, CodeGen CEO and Chief System Architect Harsha Subasinghe, WSO2 Vice President – Research Srinath Perera, ICTA CEO Muhunthan Canagey, Intel EM Ltd. Country Manager Indika De Zoysa, Madu Ratnayake EVP/GM, Sri Lanka Centre Head and Global Head of Digital, Virtusa and IFS Sri Lanka President/CEO Jayantha De Silva.